The 'Ca Go' Bike is for families deciding between a second car and a cargo bike, and thus it has all the features of an automobile. This includes high and lo...
Hub motors have the tradeoff of not being able to benefit from gearing. So while cargo bikes aren’t really built for speed records, gearing with a mid-drive should allow for climbing hills with a heavier payload, all else the same.
In this video’s case, I shudder to imagine how much a hub motor would struggle to climb a hill with 200+ kg of payload. With a mid-drive, I’m still somewhat concerned, but lesser so.
But I do agree regenerative braking would be nice for downhills. To that end, I would prefer to see a mid-drive cargo bike with a hub motor on the front wheel, for a small boost to acceleration but a huge advantage for conserving energy. Alternatively, an Eddy current hub brake would suffice, still on the front wheel, which would only provide braking but would be electronically modulatable and can dissipate more energy before fading, essentially limited only by the melting temperature.
No, that’s done to prevent the wheels from locking up and to maintain the ability to steer on cars without ABS. In this case the brakes simply were too small for the load. It’s too much heat for them to deal with.
That downhill ride with basket full of gravel was sketchy as fuck.
well shit, now I have to watch the video.
Same. The video showed up on my feed on Nebula earlier, but I hadn’t gotten around to watching it yet.
I think I would have wimped out and bailed. Sketchy indeed.
Hub motors with regenerative breaking (grin tech) are far superior to mid drive for any type of cargo bike.
Hub motors have the tradeoff of not being able to benefit from gearing. So while cargo bikes aren’t really built for speed records, gearing with a mid-drive should allow for climbing hills with a heavier payload, all else the same.
In this video’s case, I shudder to imagine how much a hub motor would struggle to climb a hill with 200+ kg of payload. With a mid-drive, I’m still somewhat concerned, but lesser so.
But I do agree regenerative braking would be nice for downhills. To that end, I would prefer to see a mid-drive cargo bike with a hub motor on the front wheel, for a small boost to acceleration but a huge advantage for conserving energy. Alternatively, an Eddy current hub brake would suffice, still on the front wheel, which would only provide braking but would be electronically modulatable and can dissipate more energy before fading, essentially limited only by the melting temperature.
Will “pumping the brakes” help anyway?
No, that’s done to prevent the wheels from locking up and to maintain the ability to steer on cars without ABS. In this case the brakes simply were too small for the load. It’s too much heat for them to deal with.